Oolite Bulletins

I think partly it will depend on how often players come across, or can induce, a pilotless ship. If you can find one every other trip then the rewards should be towards the lower end of the scale.

Derelicts are easy made. Just fire on an ship with pilot until the sparks start flying of. This is the moment the pilot decides to abandon ship. The longer you keep the ship in this state the more likely it is the pilot will eject at last.

To keep a ship in this state is difficult for a small ship. In most cases you kill it. But you can easy keep an anaconda or other heavy ship in this state. So if you go in salvaging you can create a derelict ship in most systems. That you rarely come across one is that pirates go for the final kill because they only want the cargo.

So if the payment gets to high, you can make money to easy. Payment should stay in balance with other ways of getting money, as Little Bear writes.

Eric Walch wrote:

To keep a ship in this state is difficult for a small ship. In most cases you kill it. But you can easy keep an anaconda or other heavy ship in this state. So if you go in salvaging you can create a derelict ship in most systems. That you rarely come across one is that pirates go for the final kill because they only want the cargo.

This is why I think you should be rated Clean before you can buy (or use?) a salvage drone/become a licenced salvager – otherwise pirates would be salvaging their targets, not cracking them open.

Or maybe you can buy them and use them -- but if you're not Clean then the dredger won't pay you...

Ah but Disembodied - but then you get away from the potential game enriching thought that you could have PIRATE dredgers - ships are deliberately salvaged rather than being cracked open. Ships could be cloned, made into cut-and-shunts and sold cheaply to some unsuspecting punter who finds his ship cracks in two next time he pulls up from a sunskim... plus it'd be a good way for a pirate king to enhance his fleet...

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Ah but Disembodied - but then you get away from the potential game enriching thought that you could have PIRATE dredgers - ships are deliberately salvaged rather than being cracked open. Ships could be cloned, made into cut-and-shunts and sold cheaply to some unsuspecting punter who finds his ship cracks in two next time he pulls up from a sunskim... plus it'd be a good way for a pirate king to enhance his fleet...

I think this might be an expanded OXP on its own! Perhaps at some point in the future where things like Pirate careers can become genuinely possible, i.e., as you've remarked in another thread, ones where you can operate, and save the game, outside the GalCo-op station network. Maybe then you'd buy pirate salvage drones from a pirate cove. It could pay more than a regular salvage operation (no insurance payoffs, for instance, and certainly no legal fees), but maybe you'd have to wait quite a bit longer for a pirate dredger to turn up. Hanging around, twiddling your thumbs, unable to hunt and at risk from any passing cop or bounty hunter...

@D - that's cool - don't you just love it when the creative juices start to work - if we can just persuade the oxp dream team of LB and EW to get together with either A_C and/or Ahruman to mod the game to allow non-main station saves and then get on with a pirate king/salvaging OXP then the world will be a happier place

Derelicts are easy made. Just fire on an ship with pilot until the sparks start flying of. This is the moment the pilot decides to abandon ship. The longer you keep the ship in this state the more likely it is the pilot will eject at last.

Oooh! Something new to try. I'm going to see if I can get good at forcing ejects...

Disembodied wrote:

This is why I think you should be rated Clean before you can buy (or use?) a salvage drone/become a licenced salvager – otherwise pirates would be salvaging their targets, not cracking them open.

Problem is that you stay clean when killing a anaconda. You just have to make sure there is no copper around that witnesses the kill.

Eric Walch wrote:

Problem is that you stay clean when killing a anaconda. You just have to make sure there is no copper around that witnesses the kill.

Yup. It wouldn't be impossible to be a pirate and a "legitimate" salvager – it would just take a bit of finesse. The dredgers themselves have a slightly unsavoury reputation anyway...

Disembodied wrote:

Yup. It wouldn't be impossible to be a pirate and a "legitimate" salvager – .

I added the key "requires_clean" to the missile. Now it only will show up for sale with clean traders.

Great, Eric. Out of interest, what does the dredger do if the salvaged ship gets blown up before it docks?

Disembodied wrote:

Great, Eric. Out of interest, what does the dredger do if the salvaged ship gets blown up before it docks?

Nothing, it only monitors ships that dock. And with the new addition (see below), it checks the docking ships against a list of controlled ships that are on their way. When it blows up it keeps on the list forever.

Hello LB,

After playing with the pirates that attacked my derelict, I sometimes created a new derelict. It just bothered me that such a big dredger had such a bad computer, that it only could control one drone-controlled ship at a time.

I added a list to the script. The ships are added to the list and when docked, removed again. I just created three derelicts, fired a drone at each of them, and all three went nicely to the dredger and I was paid for each one separately.

Now the number of drone controlled ships in flight is only dependent on how much missiles you can carry. (And how much manage to get access to the ships computer)

Hmm. I'm not in Court tomorrow, so have a day to do some serious OXPing! I'd added the 1 at a time variable to avoid Ship A's payment being overwritten by ships Bs bug. In "story" I'd justify that by the fact that the price of the missile also includes the contract that a DSD will make a "micro-jump" and jump out of Deep Space near the player's position to collect the Salvage. Thats an expensive job and if you fire three missiles at three different targets within 5 mins it'd be a bit much to expect 3 dredgers to jump in to collect your salavged ship. The fleet is only so large after all. If you call more than one Dredger in 5 mins, ATM you get the message that it is busy on another job. I'll try and do a merger of scripts tomorrow though and finish a playable version.

OMG, This is getting hot!

Truly impressive stuff, LittleBear. Pity that Cobra didn't have more goodies on board, though!